Expansión Museo de Arte de Lima MALI

Facing the challenges of Mali Museum’s immediate urban context, we seek an icon that provokes the visitor to recognize and appreciate its historical weight. The solicited project intends to conciliate the richness of Mali’s historical background with today’s socio-cultural state. This is approached in the project by closing a wall against noise and visual pollution, and opening up a square in front of the building's main façade. The square responds to the reactivation of the park’s internal circulation, so it was decided to join the access located on the Garcilaso de la Vega avenue and the metro station to be built on Paseo Colón. Also, it was placed a pedestrian street opening in front of the museum in a diagonal line. In addition, what was originally a wall in the structure is repurposed to function as an actual volume accommodating a fluid and dynamic route between ramps.

In its exterior, the project presents a public plaza under a shelter immediately linking it to the museum. The square presents the dialogue between two volumes of different times and origins at the service of the visitor and pedestrian. The plaza, thus, becomes a space of leisure and transition, an oasis from the hostility of the urban context. The new volume expresses its materiality in a solid way following the composition of the facade in the existing museum; it respects its heights and structure. The third level that exceeds the height of the original building, fades into the landscape as a diaphanous mirror facade, avoiding any intention of competition. One of the most important aspects of the project is the position the void plays, the non-museum.